Lychee Nuts, Litchi Nuts: Either Way, They're Edible

"Lychee Nuts"
Produce Oasis

"(Scientific Binomial Name: Litchi chinensis)...

"...Usage: Eaten raw, out of hand or with other fruits like pineapples, bananas & mangoes. Peeled and pitted lychees make a great addition to fruit cups and fruit salads.

"Selection: Also called litchi nuts or leechee, good-quality lychee nuts will be firm, rough-skinned and have deep-red to brown colored skin. Peel the skin to reveal a fruit that resembles a peeled grape. The fruit covers a smooth brown seed.

"Storage: Once picked lychee nuts retain their color and quality only 3 to 5 days when stored at room temperature...."

What, one might ask, is so special about lychee nuts?

For one thing, it's also spelled litchee. And :

"litchi"
Answers.com

"also li·chee or ly·chee (lē'chē)...."

For another, the Lemming hasn't discussed lychee/litchi/lichee nuts before, apart form a passing mention: "Apathy is Rampant, But Who Cares?" (October 15, 2009).

In that post, the Lemming linked to a page in "The new dietetics: a guide to scientific feeding in health and disease, Volume 1," John Harvey Kellogg (1921, 1923), via Google Books.

If you live in America, and the name "Kellogg" sounds familiar: it should.

John Harvey Kellogg, MD, is the fellow who brought us Kellogg's Frosted Flakes and Tony the Tiger. Indirectly, that is.

Corn Flakes and a Strange Doctor

"John Harvey Kellogg"
Museum of Hoaxes

"Type: Questionable Medicine.
"Summary: John Harvey Kellogg was a brilliant surgeon, the creator of corn flakes cereal, and health faddist who bordered on quackery.
"Posted by: Elliot Feldman

"Brothers John Harvey and Will Keith Kellogg of Battle Creek, Michigan invented the breakfast cereal industry. Will Keith Kellogg was the business genius, and John Harvey was the creative genius. In 1906, John Harvey Kellogg left the company after a bitter dispute with his brother about adding sugar to their cereal products. The two brothers never spoke again.

"An acclaimed surgeon, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg went on to devote his life to the Battle Creek Sanitarium and the promotion of healthy living. While many of his ideas and methods were sound and have remained popular to this day, other ideas approached the lunatic fringe...."

"...Despite all the Doctor's legitimate achievements, accusations of quackery soon surfaced.

"Kellogg claimed that 90% of all illnesses originated in the stomach and bowels. Yogurt, both ingested and given as a daily enema, was a central part of his Battle Creek wellness program...."

A yogurt - enema?

You can't make up that sort of thing.

Eugenics and a Ranting Lemming

Dr. Kellogg also didn't seem to approve of the way folks make babies: and had opinions about the results of many of our efforts:

"...From 1914 to 1916, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg sponsored 'Race Betterment Conferences' that supported eugenics and race segregation for 'the preservation of the human race.'..."

The Lemming isn't all that keen on the notion of 'improving the race' by eliminating 'inferior' people. Partly it's having read about what happened at places like Dachau: partly because the Lemming is one of those 'inferior' people.

Between living with a birth defect, and having been used in a medical experiment - the Lemming has something of an attitude on the subject of medical ethics.

And that's another topic, mostly for another blog:

• "Autism, Childhood Vaccines, Bogus Research, and the Lemming"
  (January 6, 2011)
  Particularly
  • Medical Ethics Shouldn't be an Oxymoron
• "Inconvenient Classes of Persons and Health Care"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (July 26, 2009)
• " 'Hand of Hope' Spinal Bifida Case - Eugenics, Ersatz Compassion, and Life"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (May 6, 2009)
• "Medical Ethics and Human Experimentation: Why I Take it Personally"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (February 3, 2009)
• "Human Clones Possible: Don't Worry, They're Just for Parts and Research"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (February 2, 2009)

A Thought for the Day: Something Revolutionary

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive."
Thomas Jefferson, 3rd president of US (1743 - 1826), The Quotations Page

The Lemming didn't think much of lockstep conformity in the '60s - and still doesn't.

Lemming Tracks: The Donora Death Fog and the Good Old Days

"Oct. 26, 1948: Death Cloud Envelops Pennsylvania Mill Town"
This Day in Tech, Wired (October 26, 2010)

"1948: An inversion layer settles over the rust belt town of Donora, Pennsylvania, trapping industrial pollution in the atmosphere. When it clears six days later, 20 people are dead, another 50 are dying and hundreds will live out their days with permanently damaged lungs.

"Inversion occurs when the air near the ground is cooler than the air above it, a reversal of normal atmospheric conditions. When that happens, manmade pollutants are trapped, resulting in smog. The physical conditions around Los Angeles, for example, lead to frequent inversion layers over the basin. That, combined with heavy automobile pollution, consistently gives L.A. the worst air quality in the country.

"But L.A. has never seen anything quite like that one week in Pennsylvania, in what became known as the Donora air inversion or, more dramatically, the 'Donora Death Fog.'..."

The town is about 20 miles south of Pittsburgh. During the night of October 26, 1948, pollutants from steel smelting plants and a zinc works got stuck under a temperature inversion there.

"...The companies connived with the U.S. Public Health Service to cover up the facts of the incident and succeeded in doing so for half a century. Whistle-blowers were silenced; records disappeared. It wasn't until 1994 that a full accounting of what happened in Donora was finally published...."

The Good Old Days and the Lemming

A good memory is one of the better defenses against pathological nostalgia, in the Lemming's opinion. It's okay to remember days of October's bright blue weather: but prudent, I think, to remember what didn't go so well, too.

Like the Donora Death Fog.

The Lemming isn't surprised that the cover-up happened in the 1940s. That wasn't a particularly bright patch in America's history, in several ways. Doctor John Cutler was making medical history in Guatemala, in cahoots with the Public Health Service. (Another War-on-Terror Blog (October 2, 2010)) The Tuskegee experiments - but those started in 1932 and continued until 1972. (Another War-on-Terror Blog (June 17, 2008))

Of course, those were scientific medical experiments on natives and other unimportant people - not like the little oopsie in Donora. The point is that the Public Health Service had a quite - convenient - sense of ethics.

You'd think that using words like "medical" and "scientific" wouldn't work so well as excuses for hurting and killing people these days - but I've discussed that in another blog (A Catholic Citizen in America (August 30, 2010))

Welcome to the Information Age

Between cell phones, blogs, and other threats to the power of old-school information gatekeepers, the Lemming doubts that something like the Donora Death Fog could be kept quiet for quite so long today. A few hours, maybe: not decades.

No, the Lemming doesn't miss 'the good old days.'

Not that the current era is particularly perfect.

Given changes in the establishment since the sixties, it's not likely that Big Oil, or any industrial outfit, would be given the benefit of the doubt in a "Donora" situation. Pollution seems to have replaced Communism as a major subject of fear - reasonable and otherwise - for America's leadership.

Humanity's talent for ethical lapses remains undimmed, though: and that's another topic.

Related posts, touching on health, ethics, and government:

• " 'I was Dead, But I'm Better Now' "
  (October 21, 2010)
• "Guatemala, Dr. John Cutler, Tuskegee, Nürnberg, and Learning"
  Another War-on-Terror Blog (October 2, 2010)
• "Is it Wrong to Kill One Person on the Chance that Someone Else Might Benefit?"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (August 30, 2010)
• "They Saved Einstein's Brain"
  (June 2, 2010)
• "Mice Feel Pain (We knew That) - And Show it Like We do ('No One' Knew That)"
  (May 11, 2010)

'I was Dead, But I'm Better Now'

There's a bit of dialog from a drama that goes something like this:

"I thought you were dead."

"I was, but I'm better now."

That's fiction. This is fact - or news, at any rate.

In France, a woman died - officially. Doctors said so.

Her sons, mere laymen, wouldn't let the doctors unplug the woman's life support system.

An example of ignorance and sentiment overruling the superior minds of Science and Medicine?

Maybe.

It's a good thing for the woman that her sons kept her plugged in, though. She woke up later.

Here's the story:

---

"'Clinically Dead' Woman Alive and Well"
Human News, Discovery News (October 20, 2010)

"A woman pronounced 'very certainly clinically dead' at a French hospital woke up hours later after her sons refused to turn off her life-support system, medics and the woman said.

"Doctors were preparing cancer patient Lydie Paillard, 60, for a chemotherapy session when she passed out, the director of the Bordeaux Rive Droite private hospital Yves Noel told AFP on Wednesday.

"A doctor managed to resuscitate her and put her on a ventilator but then, having consulted other doctors, called Paillard's sons to break the news that their mother was 'very certainly clinically dead.'

"But her sons would not turn off the respirator and she was then transferred to the university hospital of the southwestern French city where a scan revealed that she was in fact not brain dead, Noel said...."

Not to be morbid, or macabre: but this is one reason why I haven't checked off that 'organ donor' option on my driver's license. My wife knows that I'm quite willing to have parts harvested: but I don't want to wake up on a dissecting table after some hotshot medico decided I was dead.

The Lemming can understand how the medical types made that little mistake. The woman's 60 - and old folks die all the time, right? Besides, an unconscious person doesn't look all that different from a dead person: particularly if breathing is on the shallow side.

The Discovery News article doesn't give enough detail to suggest just why doctors were so eager to write Paillard off.

More, about medical ethics (it shouldn't be an oxymoron), organ transplant, research, and my take on the subjects, is in another blog. I'll admit to a bias: I think life is precious, even if a person isn't young, good-looking, and in perfect health.

• "Stem Cell Research: Backed by the Vatican, No Kidding"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (April 28, 2010)
• "Organ Transplants, a Boy's Life, and Japanese Laws and Customs: This Catholic's View"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (June 14, 2009)
• "Medical Ethics and Human Experimentation: Why I Take it Personally"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (February 3, 2009)

They Saved Einstein's Brain

Caution: Geeky content

---

"Einstein's Brain Unlocks Some Mysteries Of The Mind"
NPR (June 1, 2010)

" In the 55 years since Albert Einstein's death, many scientists have tried to figure out what made him so smart.

"But no one tried harder than a pathologist named Thomas Harvey, who lost his job and his reputation in a quest to unlock the secrets of Einstein's genius. Harvey never found the answer. But through an unlikely sequence of events, his search helped transform our understanding of how the brain works.

"In The Name Of Science

"How that happened is a bizarre story that involves a dead genius, a stolen brain, a rogue scientist and a crazy idea that turned out not to be so crazy...."

I'll let you read the NPR article for details about a real-life analog to the mad scientist of the silver screen. Basically, somebody dropped Einstein's brain in formaldehyde, sliced out bits and pieces for fellow-scientists - one of them got the bit-o-brain in a mayonnaise jar - and eventually sent it in a Tupperware container to one of Einstein's descendants.

You can't make this sort of thing up, folks.

Glial Cells: Glue No More

As it turns out, even after all that 'science,' there was enough left to study, decades later. Back to that NPR article.

"... One scientist who'd asked for samples was Marian Diamond at the University of California, Berkeley. She wanted pieces from four areas in Einstein's brain.

"Diamond doesn't talk about her part of this story anymore. But during a 1985 lecture in New York, she described what happened after she asked Harvey for the samples: Harvey agreed to send them, she said, but months went by and nothing happened. Then, three years later, the chunks of brain tissue arrived by mail in a mayonnaise jar.

"At the time, the 1980s, most scientists still believed all the important work in the brain was done by neurons. And researchers had already learned from other samples of Einstein's brain that he didn't have a lot of extra neurons.

"But Diamond was fascinated by another type of brain cell, called a glial cell. Glia means glue. And the assumption back then was that glial cells were just glue holding a brain together.

"Diamond wanted to see if there were more of the glial cells known as astrocytes and oligodendrocytes in Einstein's brain. So she counted them and found that there were, especially in the tissue from an area involved in imagery and complex thinking.

"The discovery got a fair amount of attention in the media. But scientists really didn't know what to make of it, says Doug Fields, a brain researcher at the National Institutes of Health.

"It was 'just an intriguing and peculiar finding, and kind of made people wonder what these astrocytes could be doing,' Fields says.

"But could they be involved in Einstein's genius in any way?..."

The answer is 'could be.'

"...Then in 1990, a Stanford University researcher named Stephen J. Smith published a paper in the journal Science that would change everything.

"Smith knew that neurons communicate using a combination of electrical charges and chemical signals. Scientists had figured that out a long time ago because the electrical charges are hard to miss.

"Smith suspected that astrocytes might also have the ability to communicate, but were doing so using only chemical signals, which are easy to miss if you're not looking for them.

"And Smith had an even wilder idea: Maybe astrocytes were actually eavesdropping on the chemical conversations between neurons, and rebroadcasting them to distant areas of the brain.

"If Smith was right, it would mean that astrocytes could be involved in learning, memory and even genius. Smith tested his idea on living astrocytes taken from a mouse. And Fields, in his lab at the NIH, offered to re-create that landmark experiment...."

Astrocytes respond to at least one neurotransmitter - chemicals that send information between neurons - and neuroscientists have been studying 'the other brain' for the last couple of decades.

There are many ways to come at that NPR story. There's that ethically-challenged scientists who absconded with Einstein's brain - sending at least one piece of it through the mail in a mayonnaise jar. The Einstein family's history is - interesting, and a bit sad, I think. Then, there's the rather more straightforward collection of data and analysis that happened form about 1980 on.

Einstein's Brain, Aristotle, and All That

This story of what happened to Einstein's brain - and what we discovered when someone started thinking outside the 'neurons only' box - reminded me of Aristotle. I wrote about his brilliant, and wrong, analysis of the brain in another blog. ("State-of-the-Art Neuroscience, About Two Dozen Centuries Back," Drifting at the Edge of Time and Space (June 1, 2010))

If the title of this post sounds familiar, you know your sixties movies: "They Saved Hitler's Brain" (1968).

Another Face Transplant: News, Video, and Opinion

"Spanish doctors conduct full face transplant"
CNN (April 24, 2010)
(includes video)

"Doctors in Spain say they have carried out the world's first full face transplant on a man who severely damaged his face in an accident.

"Doctors at Barcelona's Vall d'Hebron University Hospital say they were able to give the man a new nose, lips, teeth and cheekbones during 24 hours of surgery.

"Thirty doctors were part of the surgery that occurred in late March.

"The patient had undergone nine failed operations before being considered for the transplant.

"The medical team's leader, Joan Pere Barret, told reporters that the patient was satisfied when he saw his new appearance. He has scars on his forehead and neck, but they will be concealed in the future, Barret said...."

"World's first ever full face transplant completed by Spanish doctors"

RussiaToday, YouTube (April 23, 2010)
video, 0:25

"Spanish doctors have successfully performed the world's first full-face transplant in a 24-hour operation carried out by more than 30 medics. The patient had lost his jaw, nose and cheeks in an accident 5 years ago, and had had to breathe and be fed through tubes since. Ten partial face transplants have so far been carried out around the world, but this was the first full operation."

Essentially the same video - extended version:

"Spain performs full face transplant"

AlJazeeraEnglish, YouTube (April 23, 2010)

"Spanish surgeons have announced that they have carried out the world's first full-face transplant.

"The hospital, in Barcelona, performed the surgery on a young man who lost his face in an accident five years ago. Since then, he'd been unable to swallow, speak or breathe properly.

"Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith reports."

I'm pretty sure that, as this sort of medical procedure is refined, there'll be a 'fuller' face transplant fairly soon. This reminds me of the days when reattaching severed limbs was cutting-edge medical science.

The CNN article didn't discuss ethical aspects of face transplants, but that aspect of transplant surgery has been covered elsewhere.

My own take on this - as a Catholic - is that organ transplants are okay, provided that the benefit/risk ratio is proportionate. And, donating organs on your death is "meritorous." In other words, it's a good thing to do.

We've got - what else? - rules about organ transplants, of course. For example, Catholics aren't supposed to kill somebody else to get his or her parts for a third party - or ourselves, for that matter. (A Catholic Citizen in America (May 6, 2009))

Speaking of which: Celebrities can breathe a little easier. In this case at least, the young man who got someone else's face doesn't look like the (deceased) donor. Just as well, for all parties concerned.

And, provided that ethically-challenged doctors and patients get the memo: we won't hear about Hollywood stars who were killed so that someone else could have their face.

Judging from some of the remarkably imprudent things we read about in the news, though: I wouldn't be all that surprised if someone tried, eventually.

Related posts:

• "1st American Face Transplant in the News"
  (May 6, 2009)
• "Face Transplant: We Can Do it, But is it Right?"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (May 6, 2009)
  • Bottom line:
    • A conditional "yes"

Haiti, a Twitter Hoax or Two, and Giving Wisely

"Twitter hoax spreads rumors of airlines' free flights to Haiti"
CNN (January 14, 2010)

"Twitter was buzzing Thursday morning with news that several airlines are flying doctors and nurses to Haiti free of charge to help with relief efforts there in the wake of Tuesday's devastating earthquake.

"The only problem: The rumors are false, an American Airlines spokesman says.

" 'Last night's hoax on Twitter about American and JetBlue flying doctors and nurses to Haiti for free was just that -- a hoax. We don't know who is responsible, but it's a very low thing to do,' airline spokesman Tim Smith said in e-mails sent Thursday.

"Twitter users also circulated a rumor that UPS would ship for free any package under 50 lbs. to Haiti. In a blog post Wednesday on UPS's Web site, a spokeswoman debunked the rumor and said that destruction of Haiti's roads and communications networks 'means our own shipping services to Haiti are on hold.'

"UPS is donating $1 million to help the people of Haiti through relief agencies, she said...."

Good News: There are A Whole Lot of Good Folks Trying to Help

Today's news was full of stories of people in Haiti making do with what they had to dig survivors out of buildings and find medical help for the injured.

Help from overseas - including America - is either there or on its way.

And people who are too far away to help directly are sending money. And yes: that can help. Ships and aircraft need fuel to operate, and supplies aren't free. The hippie dream of everything being free - and using daddy's credit card when the going got hairy - may feel good. The fact is, though, that it takes effort to produce goods and services. And people who make that effort need to be rewarded.

Okay. That's the good news: There are lots of good people, helping.

The Gospel According to Pat Robertson and a Twitter Hoax

Then, there are clueless wonders like pastor Pat "Pact With the Devil" Robertson and his opinion that the Haitians had it coming.

And, the anonymous person or persons who started a rumor on Twitter, about free transportation to Haiti.

I've discussed Robertson's reality before.

The problem with the Twitter rumor(s), as I see it, is that they have a potential for distracting people from efforts that actually might do some good. And, they tend - in my opinion - to make people less willing to cooperate with legitimate relief efforts.

You've heard this hundreds - maybe thousands - of times before, but I'll repeat the obvious. Don't give on impulse. Find out if the "charity" you're giving to actually exists.

I don't like to say this, but it may be safer to go with high-profile outfits like the Red Cross, Catholic Relief Services or Salvation Army. They've been around for years. Decades. They have a track record of converting donations to something besides administrative overhead.

'Nuff said.

Related posts:

• "Pat Robertson, the Devil, Haiti, and an Alternate Reality?"
  (January 14, 2010)
• "Pat Robertson, the Devil, and Helping Haitians Anyway"
  (January 13, 2010)
• "Haiti Earthquake: Your Parish May have a Second Collection this Weekend"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (January 13, 2010)
• "Haiti: Archbishop Dead; Aftershocks; How to Help"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (January 13, 2010)
• "Haiti Earthquake: A Few News Videos"
  (January 13, 2010)
• "Haiti: News and How to Help"
  (January 13, 2010)
• "Haiti Earthquake: Send Help if You Can, and Pray for the Folks Living There"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (January 12, 2010)

Frosty the Pornman: Was This the Best CBS Could Come Up With?

"CBS Dirties 'Frosty's' Snow"
Digital Journal (December 7, 2009)

"'Frosty the Snowman' has been altered by media giant, CBS, into a series of adult rated commercials. CBS crossed the children's show with two of their adult shows in a series of advertisements.

"Fox News is reporting that CBS has decided to re-cut scenes from the family classic, "Frosty the Snowman" with the voices of Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother) and Charlie Sheen (Two and a Half Men). The results have Frosty talking about his adult movie collection. The entire time he is surrounded by a group of smiling happy children.

"The Neil Patrick Harris clip can be seen on Youtube

"John Tantillo of Fox News sees the damage being done on four levels; CBS, 'Frosty the Snowman,' 'How I Met Your Mother,' and 'Two and a Half Men.'

"Tantillo was quick to point out that CBS really runs the risk of causing injury to their audience. He says there is a chance, or in his words, 'good chance' that when children go to look up 'Frosty the Snowman' on the Internet they could find either of the two clips there. In that case instead of hearing about the wonderment of the holiday and winter they are going to hear two grown men discussing adult movies and women...."

There are quite a few ways of reacting to this, including:

1. Denial:
   • The news is on the FOXNews website, so it must be a lie
     • And probably some kind of conspiracy
2. Defense:
   • CBS is exercising its constitutional right to
     • Freedom of expression
     • Right to privacy
     • A whole lot of other stuff that's in the Constitution
       • Or oughta be
3. Resignation:
   • CBS is just following contemporary cultural values
     • Such as they are

Considering the myriad ways of the human mind, I'm sure there are many more alternative reactions.

Me? I'm somewhere between resignation and disgust. I've gotten used to this sort of adult, sophisticated humor over the last few decades. It's the sort of thing that's to be expected from the traditional major networks - and sophomore college boys, after a six-pack or two.

There's nothing much to be done about the situation: CBS is free to produce whatever, ah, programming they want, and market it any way they want. Presumably, they've either got rights to the old "Frosty the Snowman" content, or that remix falls within legal limits. Probably something to do with "satire," as recognized by the courts.

However, just as CBS is free to do what it wants, people who sit in front of television sets and go online are free to decide, too. Personally, I can think of quite a few things with more entertainment value than the CBS website. Princeton's WordNet online dictionary, for example. (That's my resource of choice for online definitions, BTW.)

And, if you have kids and haven't done this yet: You might consider letting them know that there are some really unpleasant people out there. And, while you're at it, figure out how to be around when your kids are online.

That last is easier for me than it is for most. I work at home, and have been blessed with a wife who knows how to raise kids - and kids who have stayed on speaking terms with both of us.

Why did the Lemming post this?

I figure that quite a few parents - and grandparents, uncles, aunts, whatever - remember the old "Frosty the Snowman" cartoon. And may not realize that CBS has created a more 'relevant,' 'adult' version this year.

That doesn't sound very "apathetic," does it? I wrote about the name, "Apathetic Lemming of the North," back in 2007. Basically, the Lemming has interests and concerns: but is "apathetic" in the sense that I'm not intensely, irrationally, worried sick about the "right" things.

Finally, it could have been worse, I suppose. CBS could have shot video of someone's backside, and mooned America. Actually, though, that might have been an improvement.

Oh, well.

More:

• "CBS' 'Frosty the Inappropriate Snowman' Ad Riles Critics"
  FOX 411, FOXNews (December 7, 2009)

Robocall Lawsuit: These are the People Who Have Been Annoying You

"Behind a Massive Robocall Scam, Four Human Faces"
FOXNews (June 15, 2009)

" You answer the phone, and it's a recorded message:

" 'By now you should have received your written note regarding your vehicle warranty expiring. This call is to give you a final opportunity to extend coverage before it is too late. Press '1' now to speak to a warranty specialist regarding your options on your vehicle.'

"Upon pressing '1,' you are transferred to a 'warranty specialist' who lies to you, telling you he is affiliated with an automobile dealer or manufacturer and that your warranty is up. And before long, you may have agreed to put $450 down on an extended service contract that costs up to $3,000, the balance to be paid in monthly payments.

"Or maybe you hang up — only to be called again. And again. Because more than a billion of these automatically dialed 'robocalls' have been sent to cell phones, government offices and even 911 operators...."

They're not just annoying: they're illegal.

And, it looks like only four people are behind them. Sure, there are the flunkies picking up the phones and technicians maintaining the equipment: but just a few people running the show:

• Christopher D. Cowart
  • 47
  • Fort Lauderdale, Florida
  • Owns Transcontinental Warranty, a Delaware company based in Fort Lauderdale
• James A. Dunne
  • 36
  • Daytona Beach, Florida
  • Owns Florida-based Voice Touch with his wife, Maureen
• Maureen E. Dunne, nee Maureen Geisen
  • James Dunne's wife
  • "Little information can be found pertaining to her."
• Damian P. Kohlfeld
  • 35
  • Valparaiso, Indiana
  • Owns Network Foundations, which is based in Chicago, Illinois
    (FOXNews)

Once more, those three companies are:

• Transcontinental Warranty
• Voice Touch
• Network Foundations

There's a civil lawsuit going on, involving the Federal Trade Commission.

I don't mean to sound vindictive, but I hope those companies go under, their employees find an honest way to make a buck, and the four people running the show sanctioned so that they can't do any more damage.

There's more than annoyance here.

911 lines and the people who operate them are there to saving lives and deal with emergencies. When robocallers tie up the lines, they can't. I hope nobody's died as a result of the wunderkinds' greed: but we may never know.

And, there's the productivity lost while people answer the phone and discover that it's another robocall. For example, I'm running a tiny business in my home. I hang up at the word "warranty," but that takes a few seconds. I can't simply ignore the phone, and all those seconds wasted add up. Multiply that by whatever power of ten is involved, and you've got a huge amount of wasted time.

A Federal Trade Commission press release (link below) tells a bit about how the operation works.

More:

• "FTC Files Suit to Stop Illegal Robocalls Pushing Vehicle “Warranty” Extensions"
  Federal Trade Commission (May 14, 2009)

1st American Face Transplant in the News

"First U.S. face transplant recipient offers thanks"
CNN (May 6, 2009)

"In 2004, a bullet ripped away Connie Culp's nose, cheeks and upper jaw. Metal fragments sprayed into her skull and stripped her face away, leaving nothing except for her eyes, her chin and forehead.

"Without her nose, she could not smell. She breathed through a tracheostomy -- a surgical opening in her neck. Without lips, she could barely speak.

"But Tuesday, when Culp, 46, the first recipient of a face transplant in the United States, stepped in front of the cameras at a news conference, she was whole...."

"...Before the surgery, Culp could not eat solid foods. She could not taste.

" 'Connie can now enjoy her food,' said Dr. Maria Siemionow, who led the transplant operation. 'She eats hamburgers and enjoys her pizzas, she's drinking coffee from the cup.'

"Her new face allows her to 'blend with society.'..."

Under the circumstances, this is wonderful news. Connie Culp's able to chew and talk again - and breathe normally.

I was pleased to see that at least one news article brought up the ethics of face transplantation (bottom line - it's okay in cases like this). I did a little checking of my own, to see what the Catholic angle on organ transplants is - more at "Face Transplant: We Can Do it, But is it Right?" (A Catholic Citizen in America (May 6, 2009)).

I'm very happy for Connie Culp - and others who have had the front of their heads restored to (close to) normal function.

This is a remarkable time in which to be living.

More, at

• "First US Facial Transplant Patient Thanks Donor Family and Doctors"
  Associated Content (May 6, 2009)
• "Face transplant recipient fronts media"
  Brisbane Times (May 6, 2009)

Facebook: Indignation, Righteous or Not, Gets Results

"Facebook Does About-Face on Privacy Change"
The Wall Street Journal (February 18, 2009)

"Yielding to pressure from its users and privacy advocates, Facebook Inc. Tuesday night backed away from controversial changes to its terms of use that some had decried as giving the social network too much leeway with users' personal information.

"Just a day after standing by the revisions, the company said it would scrap the new policy and return to its previous terms of service in a notice to its 175 million users on its Web site.

" 'Over the past couple of days, we have received a lot of questions and comments about these updated terms and what they mean for people and their information,' read the statement, which Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg expanded upon in a blog post. 'Because of the feedback we received, we have decided to return to our previous Terms of Use while we resolve the issues that people have raised.'..."

Mark Zuckerberg's blog post:
"Update on Terms"
The Facebook Blog (February 17, 2009)

"A couple of weeks ago, we revised our terms of use hoping to clarify some parts for our users. Over the past couple of days, we received a lot of questions and comments about the changes and what they mean for people and their information. Based on this feedback, we have decided to return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues that people have raised.

"Many of us at Facebook spent most of today discussing how best to move forward...."

US News and World Report's Katy Marquardt's blog post:
"The Consumerist Gives the Scoop on Facebook Privacy Snafu"
New Money blog, US News and World Report (February 18, 2009)

"If you've logged into Facebook recently, you may have noticed a peculiar "Terms of Use" update at the top of your home page. It essentially says that due to user feedback over the past couple of weeks, the social networking site will return to its previous terms of use.

"Like me, you may wonder what the previous terms of use contained.

"Here's the scoop, courtesy of the Consumerist blog, which initially broke the story thanks to a reader tip:..."

The blog post has several more links, including "10 Facebook Privacy Settings to Know".

And the Moral of the Story is: Think Before You Leap

It looks like Facebook is going to change its TOS anyway: but next time, they'll take their clients into account - and remember that this is the Information Age.

Facts have a way of getting published, now, even if The New York Times doesn't print them.

A favorite online community of mine (BlogCatalog.com) made a set of policy changes a while ago. But BlogCatalog put the changes up for discussion, before enacting them.

Smart move, I think: Took some of the decision-making load off BlogCatalog's staff, and let people in the online community have a hand in crafting the new rules. Pretty close to a win-win situation.

Anyway: Facebook got a dunking in the real world; they'll probably be more careful next time around; and we have another example of how a lot of indignant people can make a difference.

Funny Phweeters: You Mean, Darth Vader Doesn't Tweet?

"15 Fake and Funny Twitter Accounts"
"Faux accounts are all the rage -- here are the best, most current Phweeters (phony tweeters) we're following."
PC World (February 15, 2009)

"The Phweet Heard 'Round the World

"Fake Twitter accounts have been in the news a lot lately. Last week, the Dalai Lama started tweeting, and then we found out "His Holiness" was actually a fake.

"Kanye West dissed Stephen Colbert last year on Twitter. Then we found out it wasn’t Kanye after all. A White House Twitter account, which had been updated during the Bush years and then switched to Obama right after the inauguration, also turned out to be bogus...."

I'll admit it: I thought some of these were funny.

On the serious side, I'm not at all sure that impersonating a real person online is a particularly good idea - unless you've made very sure that visitors know what's going on.

My favorites of the lot: "Erica's Fish" and "Darth Vader."

And Now, for Something Completely Different: How Creep Out Your Roommate

"10 Ways To Creep Out Your Roommate"
CrazyPiglet.com (July 19, 2007)

"10) Collect potatoes. Paint faces on them and give them names. Name one after your roommate. Separate your roommate's potato from the others. Wait a few days, and then bake your roommate's potato and eat it. Explain to your roommate, He just didn't belong.

"9) Move everything to one side of the room. Ask your roommate if he knows how much an elephant weighs, and look at the floor on the empty side of the room with concern.

"8) Draw a tiny black line on your nose...."

If this looks familiar, it should: I posted about a longer list in 2007:

• "How to Confuse Your Roomate"
  (December 22, 2007).

Eight of the ten items in 'CrazyPiglet' are exact copies of the 100 list. #8, that "line on your nose" item was changed a little from the 100 list. In the longer list it was: "13. Draw a tiny, black spot on your arm. Make it bigger every day. Look at it and say, 'It's spreading, it's spreading.' "

And, #1 from the list of ten is identical, except that the list of 100 has the phrase Rice Krispies in quotes.

Two of five favorites I mentioned from the 100 list in 2007 made it into Crazy Piglet's list: and CP included one that I liked from the 100 list, but didn't mention back then: "6) Collect hundreds of pens and pile them on one side of the room. Keep one pencil on the other side of the room. Laugh at the pencil." (23 in the longer list.)

Can You Say, "Intellectual Property Rights?"

The '100 list' is undated, but the page has a very clear "© Matt Simerson 1999-2004" at the bottom.

Crazy Piglet's post is dated July 19, 2007. It's funny, and I don't have a problem with someone doing a 'best of' review.

But, I'd be more impressed with Crazy Piglet, if whoever made that post had at least acknowledged the source.

I've got some pretty well-defined opinions about intellectual property rights, and have posted about them from time to time:

• "Intellectual Property Rights"
  (A link list of related posts, started October 1, 2007 and routinely updated)

Human Clones Genetically Viable? Could Be

"Research Breakthrough: Human Clones May Be Genetically Viable"
Wired (February 2, 2009 )

"For the first time since Hwang Woo-Suk's cloned stem cells were revealed as fakes, human cloning — for medical purposes, or even for reproduction — appears to be a realistic possibility.

" 'We show for the first time that the same genes turned on in normal human embryos are the same genes turned on in human clones,' said Robert Lanza, scientific director of Advanced Cell Technologies and co-author of a study published Monday in Cloning and Stem Cells.

"Lanza's team inserted human cell nuclei into hollowed-out egg cells from both humans and animals, then stimulated them into development, a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), or more informally, cloning. When compared to a normal human embryo produced through in vitro fertilization, the animal-human hybrids didn't develop normally, but the human-human cloned embryos displayed many of the genetic characteristics of healthy development.

"The research is the first step toward therapeutic cloning — making embryonic stem cells from a patient's own DNA capable of replacing diseased tissue, failing organs and even lost limbs. And, theoretically, the same technique could be used to produce a cloned person...."

This is a big deal, from several points of view.

It's possible that the sort of "therapeutic cloning" described in this Wired article would be an ethically-acceptable way of "replacing diseased tissue, failing organs and even lost limbs."

I'm a bit concerned about where this sort of research could be headed, though.

I discussed my concerns in "Human Clones Possible: Don't Worry, They're Just for Parts and Research" (February 2, 2009), and why I'm so passionate about the subject in "Medical Ethics and Human Experimentation: Why I Take it Personally" (February 3, 2009). Both posts are in another blog of mine, A Catholic Citizen in America.

---

This doesn't sound very apathetic. What gives?

The Lemming explains himself in another post.

Text Messages at 20 Cents a Pop: Prodigious Profit, and/or Rip-off

"Text Rip-Off? Pricey Messages 'Cost Virtually Nothing' to Carriers"
FOXNews (December 30, 2008)

" In the past few years, people seem to have forgone the conventional phone conversation in favor of punching in short text messages on tiny keypads, all while mobile phone carriers have cashed in lucratively.
Text Messages at 20 Cents a Pop: Prodigious Profit
"In 2008, 2.5 trillion messages were sent from cell phones worldwide, up 32 percent from the year before, according to...."

The price of each text message has gone up, too, from 10 to 20 cents per message.

Considering that the text messages are tiny files that can - and do - travel in control channels, or in space reserved for operation of a wireless network.

The channel takes up space, whether there's a text message in it or not.

Not all carriers charge that much: and one of the ones that does is "eager to clear up any misunderstanding." That, I believe.

Assumed Guilty, then Fired and Ostracized: It's Time for an IT Code of Ethics

The problem isn't a new one. "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" is how Juvenal put it, a little shy of 2 millenia back. Judging from what got in the news this week, quite a few organizations should start asking "who watches the guardians?" And, coming with good answers.

I think it's time that IT (Information Technology) departments start behaving themselves.

A man, about my age, lost his job and nearly landed in prison because there was child pornography on the laptop computer that his employer had told him to use.

About a year after he was accused and fired, someone who knew about computers took a look at the laptop. Now, the Massachusetts Attorney General's office decided that he wasn't corrupt, his employer's anti-virus software was.

A spokesperson for the man's former employer, the Department of Industrial Accidents (DIA), said, 'We stand by our decision,' a position that wouldn't encourage me to work for that outfit.

The man, whose wife describes him as "computer illiterate," thinks that someone in the DIA's IT department was having fun, and forgot to clean up the laptop.

He could be right. If you thought that someone in Information Technology was snooping around in your files, you could be right. about one in three IT staff make improper use of their special access privileges.

Three news items, two about the Massachusetts kiddie porn debacle, one about what IT staff do with their time and privileges:

"A Misconfigured Laptop, a Wrecked Life"
PC World (June 17, 2008)
• "When the Commonwealth of Massachusetts issued Michael Fiola a Dell Latitude in November 2006, it set off a chain of events that would cost him his job, his friends and about a year of his life, as he fought criminal charges that he had downloaded child pornography onto the laptop. Last week, prosecutors dropped their year-old case after a state investigation of his computer determined there was insufficient evidence to prove he had downloaded the files.
• "An initial state investigation had come to the opposite conclusion, and authorities took a second look at Fiola's case only after he hired a forensic investigator to look at his laptop. What she found was scary, given the gravity of the charges against him: The Microsoft SMS (Systems Management Server) software used to keep his laptop up to date was not functional. Neither was its antivirus protection. And the laptop was crawling with malicious programs that were most likely responsible for the files on his PC...."
• The article includes an interview with Mr. Fiola.
• "Probe shows kiddie porn rap was bogus"
  BostonHerald.com (June 16, 2008)
  • "A child porn possession charge lodged against a Department of Industrial Accidents investigator fired for having smut on his state-issued laptop has been dismissed because experts concluded he was unwittingly spammed.
  • " 'The overall forensics of the laptop suggest that it had been compromised by a virus,' said Jake Wark, spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley.
  • "Nationally recognized computer forensic analyst Tami Loehrs told the Herald Michael Fiola’s ordeal was 'one of the most horrific cases I've seen.'
  • " 'As soon as you mention child pornography, everybody’s senses go out the window,' she said...."
• "One in three IT staff snoops on co-workers: survey"
  Reuters (June 19, 2008)
  • "FRANKFURT (Reuters) - One in three information technology professionals abuses administrative passwords to access confidential data such as colleagues' salary details, personal emails or board-meeting minutes, according to a survey.
  • "U.S. information security company Cyber-Ark surveyed 300 senior IT professionals, and found that one-third admitted to secretly snooping, while 47 percent said they had accessed information that was not relevant to their role.
  • " 'All you need is access to the right passwords or privileged accounts and you're privy to everything that's going on within your company,' Mark Fullbrook, Cyber-Ark's UK director, said in a statement released along with the survey results on Thursday.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not against IT people. In the company I used to work for, I was the IT department for the last ten years.

Art, Profitable Pretentiousness, and the Emperor's New Clothes

"Art and the emperor's new clothes"
wafflelogue (June 17, 2008)

"Do you ever feel that there is a twilight world full of people who have the Midas touch, who can turn any crazy idea into a money making machine - people who operate and think so differently to yourself as they get about in the jet set gilt clad world, that they may as well be from another planet? I've peered into this world as they conjure up riches out of thin air (or from absolute crappy ideas), and I just scratch my head and wonder how they manage it...."

This post is a bit more strongly-worded than I'd have written a critique on the artsy set's preference for doo-doo and splattered paint over creative work, but I agree.

I've posted about this psychological quirk before: "Do People Understand Your Poems? Does Your Poetry Make Sense? Now You Can Fix That!" (March 21, 2008).

Death Hoax Puts El Camino High School in International News

"Teachers defend shock tactics in DWI program"
Guardian (UK) (June 12 2008)

I'm going to quote a longer excerpt than usual from this AP article, as it appeared in the Guardian today.

• "OCEANSIDE, Calif. (AP) - On a Monday morning last month, highway patrol officers visited 20 classrooms at El Camino High School to announce some horrible news: Several students had been killed in car wrecks over the weekend.
• "Classmates wept. Some became hysterical.
• "A few hours and many tears later, though, the pain turned to fury when the teenagers learned that it was all a hoax - a scared-straight exercise designed by school officials to dramatize the consequences of drinking and driving.
• "As seniors prepare for graduation parties Friday, school officials in the largely prosperous San Diego suburb are defending themselves against allegations they went too far.
• "At school assemblies, some students held up posters that read: 'Death is real. Don't play with our emotions.' "

[emphasis mine]

Generally, the Apathetic Lemming takes a light look at the world.

This is going to be an exception.

I have no idea what sort of local conditions the teachers and administration of El Camino High School may have been reacting to, or why the Highway Patrol cooperated with this despicable fraud.

One of the high schoolers is putting the best possible light on the systematic deception: " 'You feel betrayed by your teachers and administrators, these people you trust,' said 15-year-old Carolyn Magos. 'But then I felt selfish for feeling that way, because, I mean, if it saves one life, it's worth it.' "

Human life is precious, but so is truth.

Perhaps the roughly 3,100 students needed to learn that it feels bad when a fellow-student dies. And perhaps this brutal hoax will 'scare them straight.'

They may also have learned a few other lessons:

• Law enforcement tells lies
• People in authority must not be trusted
• Teachers lie when it suits their purposes
• Deception is regarded as a virtue, when used by those with power and authority

My guess is that these aren't the lessons that El Camino High School intended to teach, but I'd be surprised if that isn't what some of the students have learned. That's too bad, because each of those lessons is as big a lie as what El Camino High School's administration and teachers told their students. At least, I hope so.

Ms. Magos felt betrayed for a good reason. She and the thousands of other high school students were betrayed. By their teachers, the school's administration, and at least a few officers of the California Highway Patrol.

I think the El Camino High School staff and administration would do well to learn a lesson from that sign: "Death is real. Don't play with our emotions."

More at:

"School defends drunken driving hoax"
CNN (June 12, 2008)

Crazy Horse Memorial: A Very Sane Idea

The Dream

"Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski and the Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear started the Memorial in 1948 to honor the culture, tradition and living heritage of North American Indians." (www.crazyhorse.org)

The News

"Crazy Horse Memorial turns 60 with no end in sight"
Associated Press (June 2, 2008)

"Sixty years after the first blast signaled work had begun on the world's largest mountain carving, the project is far from finished.

"The carved face of Crazy Horse has been completed and a welcome center and museum are open, but the carving of the Lakota warrior's body, his horse, and a planned university and medical training center for American Indian students are still years away.

"Ruth Ziolkowski, widow of sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski, who started the memorial on June 3, 1948, won't predict when it will be done.

" 'To picture it 60 years from now, I'd like to think we had the first building, at least, for the university so that we'd actually have some students here,' she said...."

The Reality

For a project that's a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and seldom considered newsworthy, I'd say that the Crazy Horse Memorial and the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation (www.crazyhorse.org) isn't doing too badly.

Not that it couldn't do better, with more support. Still, the sculpture is more complete, and the facilities more extensive, than I remember them from the day, decades ago, when I first saw the place.

Crazy Horse, the Man: "My Lands are Where My Dead Lie Buried"

Crazy Horse gets identified as Lakota and Oglala. "Crazy Horse" is, as far as I can tell, a translation of his name, Tashunkewitko, into English. That's appropriate, since the Sioux and other people of the Americas retained the custom of using names that meant something in the current language (names like "Victor" and "Daisy" are among the few European names which still do).

I get the impression that not many people know about Crazy Horse. There's a pretty good biography at Indians.org: "Crazy Horse/Tashunkewitko, Oglala"

The Crazy Horse Memorial website has a FAQ: "Why was Crazy Horse chosen?" gives a (very) short look at his life.

Lifelock CEO Todd Davis Victim of Identity Theft, and There's a Lawsuit

"Does LifeLock really work?"
KPTM FOX 42 Omaha (May 25, 2008)

"There are a number of relatively new products on the market offering to protect us from identity theft. One of them features a marketing campaign that has people talking.

"The commercials definitely get your attention: LifeLock CEO Todd Davis parades his social security number around for everyone to see.

" 'I know I have made this information useless to the criminal,' says Davis. "We are the only company that actually stops this crime before it happens.

"For about $10 a month. But it's $10 you may not need to spend.

" 'The core services that they offer is actually available to consumers at no cost,' says Jaimee Napp of the Identity Theft Action Council of Nebraska...."

'Caveat Emptor' - 'buyer beware' - an old saying, and still a useful warning.

One more thing: "Fraud-prevention pitchman becomes ID theft victim" (CNN (May 22, 2008)). "SAN JOSE, California (AP) -- Todd Davis has dared criminals for two years to try stealing his identity: Ads for his fraud-prevention company, LifeLock, even offer his Social Security number next to his smiling mug."

And, predictably, there's a lawsuit.

Todd Davis's commercials, showing his social security number on a truck, have been described as hubris. Maybe so.

I see that as really good marketing. What disturbs me is that he apparently was selling a service that's free.